Suchergebnisse

Council newspapers form an integral part of European media systems and, as such, have been analysed for their im-portant contribution to the development of local politics. However, despite a recognition of the media's important democratic function in the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) after the fall of socialism, the con-sideration of council newspapers' political role in the Czech Republic and Slovakia have been largely absent in debates surrounding the development of regulatory frameworks until recently. Interestingly, debates regarding local govern-ment transparency emerged recently (2011) in the United Kingdom, resulting in the Code of recommended practice on local authority publicity, underscoring the importance of this issue. However, developments in the aforementioned sit-uations demonstrate divergent outcomes in such considerations: the British addressed the causes, the Czechs ad-dressed the symptoms, and the Slovaks have yet to make any headway. This article utilizes qualitative analysis of policy and regulation documents to compare the trajectories of media policy and regulation of council publicity in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, ultimately contrasting it with developments in the UK, suggesting possible future trajectories for the development of this type of regulation in the CEE countries.

The report concludes descriptive findings of survey in Czech media audiences. The data from 1998 respondents was collected in October and December 2014 by Median; the collection employed quota sampling and computer-assisted personal interviewing. Besides the standard socio-demographic indicators, the questionnaire included questions regarding the full range of possible media-related practices including obtaining and reception of films, TV series and other TV content, news, sports, music, books, magazines and spoken word; online activities and use of social networking sites; playing computer- and videogames; ownership of media and computer technologies and access to the Internet; respondents' political and public activities. The report is published in Czech and English version.

In 2013, the Czech-Slovak businessman Andrej Babiš decided to widen the scope of his activities by buying the Czech media house, Mafra. He was also pursuing a political career and in 2017 became Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. Both the purchase and the political ascent of the new owner have contributed to the departure of many journalists from the two national newspapers in the Mafra Group. The journalists left in waves that corresponded to the stages of Babiš's takeover and the gradual tightening of his grip on the newsrooms, and their departure has done fatal damage to the reputation of Mafra newspapers. Through 10 in-depth interviews with some of the journalists who left, this case study charts the disintegration of the newsrooms to assess the decline of journalistic autonomy within the oligarchized media systems of central and eastern Europe. We aim to identify the point at which the erosion of workplace autonomy becomes unacceptable for media professionals and when the situation becomes inconsistent with their professional identities. The findings suggest that the gradual erosion of journalistic autonomy, caused mainly by changes in the organization's culture, led journalists first to accommodate to the changes and later to leave.

U ovom članku dajemo pregled nekih od ključnih promjena na tržištu čeških tiskanih medija nakon pada komunizma 1989. godine. Fokusirale smo se na promjene vlasništva te na utjecaj tih promjena na profesionalno novinarstvo. U 1990-ima strane medijske kompanije (pretežno njemačke i švicarske) ušle su na češko medijsko tržište te donijele model novinarstva koji je orijentiran na profit. Naše istraživanje koje je provedeno prije desetak godina bavilo se tim promjenama i njihovim utjecajem na profesionalno ponašanje novinara. U to vrijeme mnogi su novinari bili pod komercijalnim pritiscima. Ipak, sredinom 2010-ih, odlaskom stranih vlasnika tiskanih medija (osim jednoga) te pojavom lokalnih vlasnika, novinari su izrazili zabrinutost zbog uplitanja vlasnika medija u medijski sadržaj u političke svrhe. Također naglašavamo da novinari koje smo intervjuirale nisu iznosili svoje mišljenje o vladinom utjecaju na njihovo profesionalno djelovanje, primjerice putem medijske regulacije. ; In this article we map some of the key developments on the Czech print media market following the fall of communism in 1989. We focus on ownership changes and their impact on the conduct of professional journalism. In the 1990s foreign media companies (dominantly German and Swiss) entered the Czech media market and brought with them a profit-oriented model of journalism. Our research in the mid-2000s explored these changes and their impact on journalists' professional conduct. At the time journalists stressed commercial pressures, however, in the mid-2010s with the departure of foreign print media owners (except for one) and the emergence of local ones, journalists voiced concerns about interference in content for political purposes. We also note that the journalists we interviewed did not reflect on the influence of government on the conduct of their profession, for example, through media regulation.